Thats it ... I'd just really appreciate a small explanation . Thank you!

-- Anonymous, March 01, 2001

Answers

This may or may not help:

"The poem has two primary, linked interpretations. According to the first, science is "bad," destroying man's ability to dream. It reduces everything to observable facts. The second interpretation is guided by Poe's works as a whole. Poe believed that poetry or fantasy was not in opposition to science and its reading of reality. Rather, poetry uncovered another level of reality. Science is one way to find one kind of truth; fantasy is a way to find a different kind of truth that has as much claim to reality as scientific fact."

(http://endeavor.med.nyu.edu/lit-med/lit-med- db/webdocs/webdescrips/poe272-des-.html)

"First time, "Sonnet - To Science" had been printed in 1829. From the general structure of the poem there might received conclusion that it’s meaning is to define science as the enemy to the poetry: it is ‘vulture’, which wings are ‘dull realities’; it changes all things with its ‘peering eyes’; throws the poet down from his poetical skies and drives him out the ‘summer dreams’; drives out the mythological images which inspired the poets for ages, from the mankind’s imagination.

The last shown in the symbolical form as the expelling the goddesses, nymphs and elves from their poetical and mythological (Rome, Greece) environment:

Diana (the goddess of a hunting) – from her hunting chariot;

Hamadryad (the forest nymph) – from wood;

Naiad (the water nymph) – from floods;

Elfin (Elf, the tiny creature, living in flowers) – from grass. But, taking into consideration other literary creations by E. A. Poe, we see can see this poem from another point of view. In fact, the poet does not neglect the importance of science in general. In this poem it only protests against the rationalistic methodology of the science (that was widespread in his time in the USA), which expelled from its arsenal intuition and imagination. E. A. Poe considered this two factors as the necessary ones not only for poetry but for science, too. "

(http://www.poetryloverspage.com/utilities/wwwboard/messages/19.html)

Also see: (http://www.nadn.navy.mil/EnglishDept/poeperplex/sonnet.htm)

"The "Sonnet--To Science" creates a brief plea against science as an unimaginative institution:

Science! true daughter of Old Time thou art! Who alterest all things with they peering eyes. Why preyest thou thus upon the poet's heart, Vulture, whose wings are dull realities?

I also enjoyed this part of the poem about the evening star, particularly the feeling it gives of longing for something far away:

There passed, as a shroud, A fleecy cloud, And I turned away to thee, Proud Evening Star,

In thy glory afar And dearer thy beam shall be; For joy to my heart Is the proud part

Thou bearest in Heaven at night, And more I admire Thy distant fire, Than that colder, lowly light.

The last poem in my collection was very well placed, for it sums up the unique person that Poe was, his inner pain and struggles and torment, and his strange beauty and genius:

Alone

From childhood's hour I have not been As others were--I have not seen As others saw--I could not bring My passions from a common spring. From the same source I have not taken My sorrow; I could not awaken My heart to joy at the same tone; And all I lov'd, I lov'd alone. then--in my childhood--in the dawn Of a most stormy life--was drawn From ev'ry depth of good and ill The mystery which binds me still: From the torrent, or the fountain, From the red cliff of the mountain, From the sun that 'round me roll'd In its autumn tint of gold-- From the lightning in the sky As it pass'd me flying by-- From the thunder and the storm, And the cloud that took the form (When the rest of Heaven was blue) Of a demon in my view."

(http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~tanguay/book24.htm)

All of these are at best introductory and surely aren't as in depth as one would hope. I don't know exactly what you are looking for, so this answer may be adequate or an annoyance. Here's hopin'.

-AZ

-- Anonymous, July 17, 2001